Four jailed in slaying of teenager

Jen Lawson

Friday, March 5, 2004 | 11:14 a.m.

Boulder City Police arrested four people Thursday in connection with the killing of a 17-year-old Silverado High School student, and one more is expected to be taken into custody soon, police said.

Stephen Stringfield, 20; Matthew Baker, 19; and two 17-year-olds were arrested Thursday on murder charges in the death of Jared Whaley.

Police this morning were still searching for a 16-year-old boy who is also believed to have been involved.

ATV riders found Whaley partially buried in a dry lake bed in Boulder City on Oct. 26, but because of the condition of his remains, authorities weren't able to identify him until three weeks ago.

He had been killed with multiple shotgun blasts in the desert area where he was found, police said.

Whaley was acquainted with the five people who were charged, Lt. Bill Brown said.

Police believe Whaley was killed because of "the trust factor. ... They felt they couldn't trust him," Brown said. "He was targeted for this."

Reached by phone Thursday, Whaley's mother declined to comment on the arrests.

On Oct. 14, the day he disappeared, Whaley had been walking to his school bus stop in the morning when he was seen getting into a blue pickup truck, police said.

Detectives spoke to the group of friends Whaley hung out with and through them they were given names of possible suspects, Brown said.

The four arrested were charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder and booked into the Clark County Detention Center.

Stringfield and the two juveniles were arrested Thursday morning at the police station after they were questioned by detectives. Baker was arrested at his home Thursday night.

At least one of the five suspects has ties to a white supremacy group, Brown said, but Whaley's death is not believed to be connected to anyone's white supremacist beliefs.

"We investigated a possible connection to this but there's no way. There's no proof," he said.

While bodies of victims killed in Las Vegas or Henderson are dumped several times a year in Boulder City, the last homicide that actually occurred in the town was in 1998, police said.

The Boulder City Police Department, which consists of about 30 officers, doesn't have a homicide section. The department does have one sergeant and two detectives who do other types of investigations in addition to homicides when they occur.

The fact that the detectives solved the case so quickly pleased Brown.

He attributes the success to "hard work by the detectives ... ever since our detectives found out who he was they've been working overtime on this. One worked 50 hours' overtime."

Six years ago a man was found beaten to death in an alley the day after a carnival left town. Police had an idea who did it, but they weren't able to find enough evidence to make an arrest.

In 1996 a Boulder City woman was arrested for shooting her husband to death.